The Outback

I may have just been a bit late in posting- sorry gals, quite a bit on my plate at the moment!

But anyway, so I went away on a road trip from 1 – 16 August with G and his parents. We drove two separate cars, and bought a walkie talkie to aid communicating when we were driving past remote places (which happened a lot).

The above is a map of the places we stopped at – it goes from A – G.

A = Goondiwindi Queensland

B= Gundabooka National Park, NSW

C = Broken Hill, NSW

D= Flinders Ranges National Park, SA

E= Adelaide, SA

F = Mt Gambier, SA

G = Halls Gap, Grampians National Park, VIC

Highlights:

Driving an incredible amount of kilometres ( just under 7000 km) in 2 weeks 1 day

To get to see the places that we saw, it meant we had to drive a fair bit. Driving itself is quite the experience, in that you see the gradual change in landscape – as we headed west, the soil became redder and redder. You also get to see a LOT of animals – I reckon I’ve seen hundreds of kangaroos, emus, goats, sheep and rabbits(dead and alive).

Eating “mixed feral antipasto” at Parachilna

It was actually very tasty. I kept the labels and have since made it into a post card. Driving to the hotel (Petrie) was also quite a 4WD experience – problem was we weren’t driving 4WD. Lol

Seeing some incredible landscapes (dessert, ocean and mountain all in one trip)

We did about 8 bushwalks through our trip – and saw some magnificent places.

Outback life is tough

Outback is poetic but it is also a testimony of how tough life would have been and is for people who live there. We tuned into the local radio when we were in Broken Hill and the surroundings and they spent so much time talking about how many millilitres of rainwater everyone got. There are also some mental health resilience programs in place for rural communities. Enuff said.

I also don’t like what mining does to towns…

Outback tells you quite a lot about early settlement in Australia

I almost wonder if some kind of frontier mindset is subtly embedded in Australia culture…

Walkie talkies are pretty good at picking up signals (from everywhere)

To facilitate communication between the cars we bought a walkie talkie. It turned out to be very very useful to communicate topics like:

Toilet break

How far it is to the next town

When it is safe to overtake

Funny things you see along the way

How much petrol is in your tank… and how long can your car hold out for

The walkie talkie we got also picked up all sorts of signals… sometimes farmers conversations. Lol It was funny I tell you, especially because we spoke in Cantonese. I wonder what they thought about us.

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2 thoughts on “The Outback”

Nice post!!

From personal experience, we’ve gone up and down the East Coast of Australia from as far as Cairns to Melbourne. It is quite breathtaking and highly recommended.

We often also take Walkie Talkies when going to remote places, like Fraser Island. Very useful and we also pick up other frequencies. We picked up a few foreign languages too in that time and it’s funny from our end 😀

Dude, this looks epic. Did I ever tell you that I don’t think I can do half these adventurous things you do. Just reading your post makes my heart skip a few beats. I guess I’m just not confident in my keep-me-alive skills.

I’m intrigued by your comments about mining and the frontier mindset. Would love to hear more when I see you in person!